The End
by Min Daae
Summary: Written for Yuletide 2009. Or, how Brinvillier Strych broke Mildmay. Warnings for torture and general overall nastiness.


"Why would I kill you? If I kill you, you are of no use to me." Malkar's words ran like ice down Mildmay's spine as the seat rattled beneath him. "Do you know your brother used to sit just like that? But he looked at me differently. With fear. Never mind, you will learn."

_No. _He bit down on the gag, snarled around it, even if his head throbbed with pain. Strych, Malkar, whatever his name was, crossed one ankle on one knee and smiled with all his teeth. "Do tell me – what is it, Milly-fox? How is your brother?" His rings glowed, slightly, and the gag fell to the floor.

"Ain't your fucking business," he spat, slurred, and Malkar tsked mildly, mouth curving into a smile, ever so slight, though the intonation of his voice did not change.

"Of course it is my business. You know he belongs to me, don't you?" His eyes were cold and calculating, smile and voice still pleasantly amiable. Mildmay threw himself against the chains, for all the good it would do.

"You fucking bastard. You dunno – he ain't coming-"

"Oh, how charming. You even sound the same." Malkar shook his head, slightly. "Mildmay, Mildmay. I liked your brother very much at one time. I think I may come to like you even more. After all, if he isn't coming, we have plenty of time." The carriage stopped, and the chains on his wrists were long enough to fling Mildmay to his knees as he tugged against them. Malkar's finger ran up along his throat, graceful and precise.

"Right where you should be," he purred, and Mildmay snarled, enraged, and the gag was back between his teeth.

"You hate me now," Malkar said.** "**But you will hate me to the point of love, when I am done with you."

The clock ticked all night long, never stopping, and he did not sleep at all. Mildmaypaced, tiger-like, from end to end of his cell.

The night seemed very long, and he spent every moment thinking, mind racing in circles almost faster than he could keep up, and lived waking dreams of killing Malkar. What pleased him most about those, at the moment, was thinking of how proud Felix would be of him.

**

"I asked you a simple question, Mildmay. Answer me." Mildmay bared his teeth and said nothing, wondering if he could move fast enough to wrap his hands around Malkar's throat before the wizard could strike him down. If he could just get Malkar's head close enough to the wall…

"You are amusingly transparent. I encourage you to try, by all means. I wouldn't want to deprive you of your chance to test your strength against mine." Malkar was smiling, faintly, and it was clearly a trap, but sometimes all you could do with a trap was spring it.

Mildmay moved as though to feint and then went straight for him, using his weight like a club. Or trying to. It was like smashing into a wall, and then being kicked in the gut. His head cracked against the floor and Mildmay lay there, dazed. _Stupid move, Millyfox… _

Malkar was kneeling beside him, tsking quietly, and brushed a lock of red hair back with long, graceful fingers. For a moment, they looked like his brother's, but the smile was much worse. "Oh, dear. Mild-may-your-sufferings-be-at-the-hands-of-the-wicked. How…_sad._"

Mildmay snarled and lunged upward, bringing his hand up to seize Malkar's hair and drag him down, but Malkar was faster again, and his hand snapped to the floor, Malkar standing and resting his foot on it, tapping lightly, almost thoughtful.

"And you still have not answered my question. Darling, your manners need such correcting. I shall see to it, certainly."

"Fuck off," Mildmay snarled. "I ain't answering nothing."

"Your vulgarity wounds me. 'I am not going to answer anything you ask me' would be the correct phrasing. Now. Am I correct that through the working your brother has so inappropriately and illegally placed on you, he will know the moment you die? Yes? That was a rhetorical question. Very well. Then does he know when you are wounded?"

Mildmay gritted his teeth and said nothing. Malkar smiled slightly. "I thought so," he murmured, and shifted his weight.

The bones in Mildmay's wrist broke with a sickening crack.

He screamed.

"I suppose we shall find out," said Malkar smoothly. "I'll be certain to ask Felix before I kill you. I think that is all for the moment." Mildmay's chest heaved with painful breaths as Malkar bent again, tracing a delicate line across his bared throat. "Yes. I think that is all, for the moment. Mild may your sufferings be at the hands of the wicked.**" **

The dark sound of Malkar's soft laughter followed him into unconsciousness.

**

It was his cell again, and his wrist was whole, and the sound of the clock beating in time with the throbbing in his head kept him wide awake. Crouched in a corner of the cell, he watched the stripes of light through the thin bars and tried not to think.

The door opened, and Ginevra walked in.

"You're dead," Mildmay said hoarsely, and then felt stupid for saying it. Of course she wasn't real. It was just a trick. Hocus things. He shut his eyes. If he couldn't see her, what could she do to him?

"Dennis?"

Fuck.

He opened his eyes and she was still there, looking lost and confused. "What are you doing here?" She asked. "I thought you died…"

"Fuck," he said aloud, or slurred, and tried to stand up, but his leg wasn't listening, stiff as a board. Some fox he was.

"Why do you – aren't you happy to see me?"

"You ain't gonna beat me like this, you bastard," he snarled, and Ginevra looked over her shoulder, seeming nervous, confused.

"Who are you talking to?"

"No one. I ain't talking to nobody. I ain't talking to you. Kethe." He closed his eyes and she touched his face. Her fingers were cold, like she'd been in the water too long. "Kethe's cock," he breathed, and didn't look up.

"Why are you staying here? Come with me…I'm frightened, Dennis."

"Fuck off," he snarled, at her, at Malkar, at everything. "Fuck off."

"Dennis, someone's been asking me about you…you don't know anyone named Felix, do you? He seems very upset…"

_Stupid Millyfox, getting yourself caught. No, how would he know… _He opened his eyes, looked into Ginevra's, and said, "My brother's a whore," and as if that were some kind of sign, she was gone, and it was just Felix's room again, because he'd been sleepwalking, and Felix half sat up, the blankets slipping down his chest, clearly startled and clearly naked.

"Mildmay?" he asked, sounding confused. It was like his limbs weren't under his control, and Mildmay walked to the bed and kissed Felix's lips. His brother went soft in his arms with a whimper of aching longing. Arms and legs and bodies twined together, he pressed Felix down, unable to reconcile with the conscious disgust and the uncontrolled motion of his own body, and then the body in his arms was Ginevra again, and a moment later it was Malkar, who laughed and pulled his head down by the hair, kissing him open mouthed.

Then all of it was gone, and he was slumped against the stone wall, wretched and nauseous, that clock still booming,and it might have been in his head or outside of it, but he would hear it forever.

**

Again and again and again he built up his walls, and again and again and again, Malkar found the chinks and cracks that tore them down all over again.

"Tell me, Mildmay…has your brother ever fucked you?"

Mildmay rolled his eyes back, trying to see Malkar's face, so he could memorize it, to hate in even more detail.

"He has a talent, you know. You might ask, sometime…or better, order, it would arouse him even more if you were to shove him down – you could, with your build – and push his face to the floor and insist that he give everything to you…I used to do that, you know, and he always whimpered in the most satisfying ways…"

An incoherent snarl escaped his throat, unplanned, unanticipated. "I ain't a moll," he fought to say, and Malkar laughed, that awful sound.

"I'll go on, then…I always liked his mouth best, no matter how much it entertained me to fuck him in earnest…he does the most wondrous things with his tongue, your brother, and his eyes are so wide you can see right through him, working his throat – and he always swallows, as well, hardly with a sound…"

"Shut up," he grunted, not wanting to hear more, hating himself for shuddering in disgust, hating Felix for _doing _that, and to Malkar, hating Malkar, always hating Malkar.

"I won't touch you, Mildmay. Don't worry. Not yet. And I certainly wouldn't trust anything delicate near those teeth of yours. And it is too soon, far too soon, to consider you any kind of tool as of yet…"

"I'll fucking kill you," he snarled, fighting to rise from where he was bound to the floor, on his back today. "I'll kill you, I'll pull your fucking guts out through your nose."

"I'm afraid I can't be adding to your total today, Milly-fox…how many men have you killed? You're just a whore of a different color. That's the only difference. Have you ever felt aroused when you killed, Mildmay? It was an old way of showing scorn for the dead, to masturbate over their corpse. Sad, isn't it, how some traditions are lost…"

Malkar cupped his face and looked into his eyes, almost smiling. "The things I could teach you, Mildmay…the greatest of your day, perhaps, but you are barely a child. If you wish the chance, I will never refuse you…"

"Ain't learning nothing from _you,_" Mildmay spat, and Malkar tapped his foot once and turned away.

"Do you think your brother is perverted, Mildmay?"

As he fought with that question, wanting to say _no _and vehemently but unable to now, Malkar faced him again, and his smile widened.

"I will be sure," he said, softly, "that your brother knows how thoroughly you condemn him."

**

"Do you realize what your brother has done to you?"

Mildmay said nothing, though he was chained, now, hands bound together and ankle to ankle so he could only hobble and barely that, with his leg getting stiffer every day. At this point escape would hardly be worth it, not to go out and be even more of a cripple than before. If he could kill Malkar, though.

Not even for Felix anymore.

"The obligation d'âme is a permutation of the obligation d'sang, the very bond I tied Felix to me with, that he claims to have escaped. Clever, perhaps, but all the same. You have willingly put your head in a noose. Is this foolishness, or is your misguided affection truly so great?"

Mildmay watched Malkar with narrowed eyes. Back and forth and back and forth and back.

"I am at a loss, truly. I hardly know what it is to admire. All the same, I do find it interesting, this tool…how does it work, do you know? Of course not, you are annemer…another thing to ask Felix, I am sure." Malkar stepped away, out of range of Mildmay's sight, and a moment later his fingers were running through Mildmay's hair. He sighed, and stepped back, wrinkling his nose. **"**I would have you washed. But I think not. Not for the moment. Filth does so offend me."

"Fucking funny," Mildmay started to snarl, and Malkar's hand clamped on the back of his neck, with surprising strength.

"You are lucky that I do not wish to be crude. All the same, the range of punishments for your insolence are wide and …lengthy. After all, we still have some time, don't we? Mildmay, how did you kill people, mostly?"

Mildmay kept his mouth shut.

"Come now. I will know. I think you will find it less onerous to tell me what I want. But I will let this go. Strangulation, yes? Now then…I would like you to understand that everything you feel is real. I have no need for lies. And I would not like to waste a moment of our precious time."

Mildmay fought, trying to pull away, but the silk cloth fluttered over his head and around his throat, and Malkar pulled his hands back.

Mildmay tried to breathe in again and could not.

"You know this?" Malkar's voice murmured, in his ear, almost intimate. "I can feel your heartbeat accelerate, the muscles in your neck stand out. You discover that you cannot breathe. Are you afraid?"

He wanted to fight it. If he could get his hands free, Malkar was close enough to touch, and therefore to hurt. No man, not even a hocus, could be invincible. And he did know it, knew exactly what he would feel, how it would happen…

"Your heart beats faster, using up oxygen too rapidly to replace. Perhaps you are dizzy? Perhaps not. All I need to do is wait. Soon enough even you, my darling, must succumb. We all have our needs, and to breathe is more important than to love. A dying man will do remarkable things to survive, you know?"

The voice was the worst. Quietly amiable, almost friendly, as though this were nothing to him. No malice, no hatred, nothing. This was only entertainment, nothing more. Something in Mildmay started screaming.

And screaming.

The dizziness was catching up to him. He'd have some time before he passed out, still, but after that… _worthless. _He thought of Mehitabel, who wouldn't probably be very happy. And Felix, who'd keep an eye on _him_?

_Fuck Felix, _said a much larger part of his brain. _This is about surviving. All you gotta do is kill Strych._

_All you gotta do._

_Ain't you the best assassin in the __Lower City__? _

There were no bruises on his throat when he woke again in the cell, but he could still feel the silk against his neck, and it hurt to breathe. They'd put him somewhere else, and there were others there with him. He didn't talk to them.

_All you gotta do is kill Strych. _He shoved that thought down, closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He ached in deeper places than he could name, and wondered what he would become.

**

"You are beautiful, Mildmay. Little wonder that your brother is so concerned. Felix always did like stupid, pretty things."

The sound Mildmay made was hardly human in its furious anger and visceral disgust, but Malkar laughed. Malkar always laughed. Smiling, he knelt again, one finger circling Mildmay's nipple carelessly, drawing a line of goosebumps with his fingernail. "You know why you are here, you worthless creature."

From him, it was not even an insult. Only fact. Mildmay stared at him mutely and said nothing.

"Your brother, of course. It is him I want, after all – I hope you take no offense at that, my darling. I can keep you as well."

"Felix ain't coming for me," Mildmay snapped, almost wanting it to be true. Felix's fault he was here. Felix would wait for someone else to do it because that was what Felix _did. _

Malkar laughed. "Such faith you have. No, I think otherwise. I think he is hastening toward us every day, and I must be fully prepared when he comes here – which he will, I am sure. Felix has always been a clever little whore. However,I have something he does not reckon on."

Mildmay felt his gut twist and fought the chains, trying to jerk his head up. Malkar caught his face between long-fingered, warm hands. "I have you."

Mildmay spat. Malkar turned his head, so it struck his cheek instead of his eyes, but the casual backhand slammed Mildmay's face into the floor nonetheless. Malkar stood, wiping his face.

"You still have your will because I find it entertaining. But you are what you are, Mildmay, and that is a killer. And I can use that…"

_No. _He understood, too quickly, and hated himself for pausing.

"You will kill Felix for me." Malkar's smile was almost gentle. "I will ask him what I need to know, and then you will kill him for me, and I will watch you. And then you are-"

Mildmay fought with everything he had left, hating, hating, hating. _Enough of being used like a weapon – enough of being used – enough- _

"-mine."

The sound he made came from his chest, an utter denial, as loud as he could make it, like if he cried loud enough then this stone would crack open and bring the sky down. _Felix…_

_All you gotta do… _

**

He stopped.

Stopped being, stopped knowing, ceased to know his own name. There could be nothing human left. Keeper had tried to burn it all away, but Keeper had never understood…

He swallowed the memories of fear and bitterness and hope, closed his eyes and settled into the bleak and empty place he went to kill. Nothing could touch him now.

Except the anger. Except the hatred.

His teeth ground together, and the clock echoed in his head, and he understood, finally, what it was to be a killer. His face hurt, his leg hurt, but none of that mattered. He knew the face he wanted, knew it perfectly, and it would die.


End file.
